Tag: cumbria

As part of the global launch for the New Balance Real Ale Pack, we had the opportunity to interview some of the New Balance Team, so of course, we were going to take them up on this. It’s not every day that you get the chance to do this, so it was a no brainer.

These guys have an absolute wealth of knowledge and are all but happy to share it with us, so this interview is quite long and in depth, but we thoroughly enjoyed being part of it, and all of the responses to the questions are particularly excellent.

The last Wednesday of July, as NB Gallery, we headed to Cockermouth, a town in Cumbria, England, for the official global launch of the New Balance Real Ale Pack, and boy was it good. The hospitality over the few days that we were there was absolutely faultless, big big shout to all those involved for nailing the event.

The plan was to arrive in Cockermouth and check into the Allerdale Court Hotel, easily one of the nicest hotels I’ve stayed in – rooms, bar, breakfast, and staff all excellent, and in the perfect spot in this lovely Lake District town. Fashionably late, we arrived, checked in, and were greeted by a NB Welcome Pack filled with goodies, such as a pair of the Real Ale CT300’s, beer mats, ale, NB USB, and our intinerary for the next few days.

2014 marks the 10th anniversary of hanon shop’s collaboration history with New Balance, and in celebration, they take a step away from their usual running models to work on one of New Balance’s first tennis shoes. They teamed up with 3 more of New Balance’s earliest partners, Sneakersnstuff, Firmament, and 24 Kilates to produce a special edition of the Court 300 tennis shoe.

The CT300 was first released in 1979, and features an extremely lightweight upper, which consists of closed mesh and suede overlays. It is also built with superior cushioning and the unique sole unit of polyurethane and encapsulated gum rubber provides great durability.

Much like 2006 and 2012, hanon have revisited the Northern Sole theme that has proved to be so successful for them, and they’ve drawn inspiration from the bright colours of patches and album covers associated with the Northern Soul music scene. The shoe has been named the ‘Phoenix’ and the colourway is a mixture of rich purple, soft grey, and blue pig suede, which is then all offset with closed mesh in dark marine.

These will be available instore at hanon shop on the 27th of June from 10am, and available online at 2pm with a RRP of £105. They also come with two sets of laces, a silk screened dust bag and vinyl sticker set, which can be seen in the below picture.